Development of Komagataella phaffii as a cell factory for efficient de novo production of β-caryophyllene.

β-Caryophyllene is a natural bicyclic sesquiterpene found in a large number of plants around the world. It has anti-inflammatory, anticancer and analgesic biological activities associated with its important medicinal value, and has also attracted attention in the field of bioenergy with high energy density. Due to the low amount of β-caryophyllene in plants and complex purification process, microbial biosynthesis is considered as a promising alternative for the industrial development of β-caryophyllene.

Development of a green cell factory for sustainable production of plant-derived sesquiterpene (-)-α-bisabolol.

(-)-α-Bisabolol is a plant-derived sesquiterpene derived from which can be used as a raw material in cosmetics and has anti-inflammatory function. In this study, we designed six mutation sites of the (-)-α-bisabolol synthase BOS using the plmDCA algorithm. Among these, the F324Y mutation demonstrated exceptional performance, increasing the product yield by 73 %.

An engineered IL-21 with half-life extension enhances anti-tumor immunity as a monotherapy or in combination with PD-1 or TIGIT blockade.

Interleukin-21 (IL-21) has exhibited anti-tumor activity in preclinical and clinical studies; however, its modest efficacy and short half-time has limited its therapeutic utility as a monotherapy. Therefore, we engineered a fusion protein (IL-21-αHSA) in which a nanobody targeting human serum albumin (HSA) was fused to the C-terminus of rhIL-21. The αHSA nanobody displayed broad species cross-reactivity and bound to a HSA epitope that does not overlap with the FcRn binding site, thus providing a strategic design for half-life extension.

[Porcine aminopeptidase N is a functional receptor for the PEDV coronavirus].

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) causes lethal diarrhea in piglets that leads to great economic losses in East Asia. It was reported that aminopeptidase N (APN) was the receptor for Transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV), Human coronavirus 229E (HCoV-229E) and Feline coronavirus (FeCoV) which all belonged to group I coronavirus including PEDV. It was also confirmed previously that porcine aminopeptidase N (pAPN) could bind to PEDV, and anti-pAPN antibodies could inhibit the combination.

High-level prokaryotic expression of envelope exterior of membrane protein of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus.

The truncated fragment M' gene, encoding the exterior of the viral envelope protein of PEDV, was subcloned into prokaryotic expression vector pGEX-6p-1. The recombinant plasmid pGEX-6p-M' was constructed and transformed into E. coli BL21(DE3)pLysS for expression.